One Maple, Two Ways

 

2/12/26 reference photo (Caran d'Ache Neocolor II, Derwent Inktense Blocks, Derwent Drawing pencil)

Looking at these two sketches made from the same reference photo, you might guess that I made the monochrome one first as a values study, then executed the color version.

Actually, the path I took was less straightforward. Initially planning to make another fanciful tree character, I was searching through my folder of tree images for ideas. Before I could find the right trunk, I came upon this photo that I had taken a couple of summers ago. Despite the chunk taken out of the left side of its crown to accommodate power lines, this huge maple is glorious in the fall, and I’ve sketched it both from life and from photos (it’s a little precarious from life, as I have to stand on the traffic roundabout one block south to get this view). Yet I’ve probably never sketched it in the middle of summer when the foliage is green. Seeing this photo made me want to pull out some water-soluble materials.

After finishing the color version, I still wasn’t done: A monochrome study is satisfying in different ways. I pulled out a colored pencil for one more study.

2/12/26 photo reference (Derwent Drawing pencil)

Oil Pastels: In or Out?

 

2/4/26 Haiya Paul Rubens oil pastels in Canson XL mixed-media sketchbook (photo reference)

Last year when I did my big downsizing of art supplies, it was easy to keep the things I use regularly or know that I enjoy using, even if I use them infrequently. It was also easy to get rid of things I knew I would never use. The difficult job was the whole middle ground: Things I wasn’t sure if I liked enough to keep, but maybe wanted to try again sometime.

This year my job is to go through that relatively small pile of uncertainty and decide, one way or the other. In that pile were a couple of sets of oil pastels I had purchased during the pandemic (during late-night retail therapy sessions to treat my probably common malady of boredom mixed with anxiety). Ironically, I tried them a bit during my own bout with COVID when I had plenty of sequestered time to experiment, but not much afterwards.

Do I like Caran d’Ache Neopastels and Haiya Paul Rubens oil pastels? Right off the bat, they have two strong disadvantages to my sketching lifestyle: They require a fairly large sketchbook, and they are messy, both on the hands and in forever transferring to other surfaces. That means I will never take them out to sketch on location. Anything that I can use only at home rarely gets used.

I decided to make a sketch with each product to remind myself of the experience. As I discovered the first time, I love the effects I can get with very soft and schmushy Haiya oil pastels (top of post). Using a smudging tool, the creamy, lipstick-like sticks can be blended as much as desired. I applied them fairly lightly, but I’ve seen demos online in which the product is applied and blended so heavily that the results can look like oil painting.

The Neopastels are much drier and not as easy to blend (sketch below). I immediately decided that I would not keep the set, although it was several times more expensive per stick than the Haiya set. But I was still unsure about the latter.

2/4/26 Caran d'Ache Neopastels in Canson XL mixed-media sketchbook (photo reference)

Since Mary Jean and Roy had both played with oil pastels, we decided to devote an art play date to sharing and exploring our various oil pastel products. To give the Haiya set one more try, I made the sketch below (it looks a bit abstract, but it’s an x-ray of my right shoulder, which was just diagnosed with adhesive capsulitis, or “frozen shoulder”).

2/13/26 Haiya Paul Rubens oil pastels in Canson XL mixed-media sketchbook (X-ray reference)

By the end of that sketch, I was almost ready to give up that whole set, too – but not quite. I compromised by keeping 10 colors from the set of 48, then let MJ have the rest. Roy got the Neopastels. My arty friends will make better use of them than I ever will.

While they continued making a mess, I retreated, with much relief, to the clean and tidy Caran d’Ache Neocolor II crayons (below) in my newly MacGyver’ed kit.

2/13/26 Third Place Commons (Neocolor II crayons in Hahnemuhle sketchbook)

Kids on the playground!

Retro Furniture at US Bank Center

2/14/26 US Bank Center

Last winter’s outing at US Bank Center was so popular that we knew it would become a USk mainstay during the cold months. Great coffee and pastries from Olympia Coffee and comfy seating on three levels make it ideal for capturing intriguing interiors and people.

Last year I sketched mostly the window views from the third level and people on the mezzanine, so this time I tried something entirely different. The third floor is furnished and decorated in a retro style with unusual lighting fixtures that attracted several other sketchers, too. Somewhat inspired by the color scheme, I also took some liberties. It was fun to focus on the furnishings as if they were a giant still life.

That sketch took longer than I usually spend on a single sketch; I was hungry by the time I finished. Taking my snack to the mezzanine level, I sketched other sketchers until it was time for the throwdown.

A good mix of water-soluble and non-soluble media.

Color notes: Although color is not usually what attracts me first or determines whether I choose a subject to sketch, it was this time. The interior scene in the first sketch felt like a good test of my values-based palette, and all those solid shapes of color were easy to see. Picking up on the rust, yellow and navy furniture, I changed the lighting fixtures from white to light green and the patterned wall to pale yellow. I made the cast shadows dark green just to balance the green lamps. I think limiting my palette to four colors made the composition more cohesive.

Media notes: Since I was seated in a chair at a table, not standing on the sidewalk, the sketch was not necessarily a test of my newly MacGyver’ed sketch kit, but it confirmed that I chose a solid range of warms and cools, and a good mix of water-soluble materials. In fact, I took advantage of having a comfy seat to include a technique I don’t usually like to spend much time on when standing – the “licked sky” technique – with both the Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle pencils and the Neocolor II crayons. The pale washes that are easy to achieve with that technique are an ideal way to give color to the lightest values. Even without including watercolors, the technique made me feel like my mixed-media kit was even more mixed!

My MacGyver’ed Everyday-Carry Kit

 

A tiny jewelry case

I knew it would come to this. As much as I’d like to have more mixed-media materials on hand when I’m sketching on location, the various supplemental kits I’d been trying the past several weeks just weren’t working. I don’t mind carrying an auxiliary tote bag on sketch outings for things like a larger sketchbook and a water bottle, but having to fuss with a supplemental tool case inside the tote is a fumbly problem. My everyday-carry bag on the left; a tote on the right; going back and forth and forgetting which tool is on which side, all while standing on a sidewalk – AACCKK!

It was time to go back to the drawing board.

My goal: Eliminate a supplemental case and instead carry a few mixed-media materials in my usual Rickshaw pen case, which fits so nicely inside my everyday-carry Rickshaw bag (both shown in this post).

My problem: Every time I’ve tried to carry a few Caran d’Ache Neocolor II crayons in the pen case, the short crayons would be difficult to dig out of the case, or they would fall down horizontally and no longer be visible.

With that basic problem identified, I looked for a solution that would somehow raise the crayons in the pen case so that they would be visible like the taller pens and pencils. The solution would also have to be narrow enough that the crayons couldn’t fall down sideways.

Those of you who sew can probably see an easy solution: Make a small fabric pocket inside the pen case. Sadly, I no longer have a sewing machine, nor any fabric scraps (all sewing things unused for many years, they were downsized). I’m also lazy.

Amazingly, I found something that was exactly the right dimensions: A tiny fabric case intended to hold jewelry during travel (top of post). I have never used it for that purpose, but when it was given to me years ago, it seemed like something I might someday have a use for. That day finally came.

Six crayons fit perfectly and can't fall down sideways.

Six Neocolor crayons fit perfectly and can’t fall down sideways. Breakage would still be an issue, but I might consider swapping in a couple of Derwent Inktense Blocks instead of Neos at some point. As a trial, I’ve simply clipped the jewelry case to the upper edge of the pen case. If it works out, I’ll sew it into place permanently (thankfully, I do still have a hand-sewing kit).

Clipped into place for now.

As for the kit’s contents, I started over completely. With crayons coming in, some pencils had to come out. It was a good opportunity to cull a couple of unused pens that had crept in over time, too. The current selection is shown below.

Following my general color guidelines, I chose a warm and a cool of each hue in a mix of Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle pencils and Neocolor II crayons. Several choices still fall in the category of ones I wouldn’t normally “see” in my typical urban landscape, so I’m hoping they still push me outside my usual box.

The two non-soluble pencils are Derwent Drawing pencils in Chocolate and Grape. Those two pink Neocolors are for spring blossoms, of course. The swatches were trials to see what kinds of greens I could mix with the palette’s yellow and blues.

Newly MacGyver'ed kit: Let's see how this goes.

A Wallingford Street (Plus Supplemental Kit Fail)

 

2/11/26 Wallingford neighborhood

Back in the day when I used to sketch all winter from my mobile studio, this was a favorite street scene type: Trees, cars, utility poles and wires with bonus backlighting – the type I could sketch easily while parked. After I started doing much of my urban sketching while fitness walking (beginning in 2019), I mostly stopped sketching from my car. I’ve missed this kind of “nothing” view – nothing of particular interest, but so quintessential of a residential Seattle street. Even though it’s not my street or even my neighborhood, it speaks of home and familiarity like nothing else does. Ironically, I was taking a fitness walk through the Wallingford neighborhood when I came upon this scene, and I stood between parked cars to capture it.

Too many colors; cumbersome case

Media and color notes: Although I’m generally satisfied with the results here, I have a couple of complaints. This was my first on-location sketch using my newly evaluated and downsized mixed-media kit. The addition of all the Caran d’Ache Neocolor II crayons to my usual daily-carry colored pencils has given me too many color options: I took too long dithering about choices, and I also used too many colors, resulting in an incohesive palette. I should have stuck with no more than three to five at a time, which had been my rule when I first started experimenting with values-based hues.

The most significant complaint, though, is that the kit is still too much to hold when I’m (literally) on the street. One culprit is the Rickshaw Sinclair, which accommodates more crayons than I need or want access to. Even worse, I am constantly fumbling with the depth of the case, which makes the crayons difficult to reach. The injury added to insult was that when I kept trying to fold down the Sinclair’s edges to reach the crayons, stress was applied to the Derwent Drawing pencils on the other side, and all three points chipped! (Since I’ve been daily-carrying a few Drawing pencils, I have found that those super-soft cores break easily compared to most other high-quality pencils. Unfortunately, dropping implements is an unavoidable hazard of urban sketching!)

Just as I knew I would, I’ve returned to the same point yet again (as I have many times before): I must find a way to get everything I want to use into my daily-carry, or the excess will cause more frustration than mixed-media joy. ARRGGHH!

Discovering a Tree Character

2/9/26 photo reference and imagination

Looking for more ways to avoid doomscrolling, I watched a new video from Steve Mitchell’s Mind of Watercolor YouTube channel. Although I’m not using watercolor much lately, I often find Steve’s approaches to sketching, painting and mixed media inspiring. In this video, he draws an imaginary tree character inspired by fantasy book illustrations.

Scrolling through my “trees” folder of photos, mostly taken on neighborhood walks, I found one with a spectacular twisted trunk (at left). This tree seemed to be a character already – all I had to do was exaggerate its shape a bit (but not much) and add a face. The face was easy enough to draw, but I admire the way Steve “sculpted” the face of his tree more dimensionally. I’d like to work on doing more of that.

Another fun challenge was interpreting the “light logic” for the imaginary areas of the tree and the face. Since the reference photo was taken on an overcast day, I didn’t have much to go on, so I had to squint hard, choose the light direction and make it consistent for the parts I imagined. Steve seemed to be working from a variety of references and maybe mostly imagination, but it’s obvious that his vast experience has given him a strong sense of light logic. I wish he had talked about this challenging aspect of imaginary drawing, but it probably comes intuitively for him.

2/10/26 photo references and imagination

The next evening, I tried it again (at right), this time with two reference photos: a different tree and an Earthsworld face. Working on making the face more dimensional was definitely easier with a reference photo (and it was extremely low pressure to use the reference for inspiration only and not have to think about resemblance). As with previous experiments in drawing from imagination, I want the result to look convincing as a 3-dimensional object in space, even if the subject is obviously fanciful.

Anyway, these are a ton of fun, and I plan to do more. They work my imagination, which is always hard for me, especially in the evening when I’m tired, but most of it is comfortable and familiar. 

Isn’t it amazing that these tree trunks are not fantastical at all – they are real! The trees are both outside my immediate neighborhood, so I’m not sure if I can find them again, but I hope to someday draw at least one of them realistically from life.

Endangered

 

2/6/26 palm cockatoo, Woodland Park Zoo

On one of our couple days of “false spring” last week, I took my fitness walk around Woodland Park Zoo. I told myself I’d make one brisk circuit of the zoo grounds first without sketching, then go back to sketch, but I couldn’t resist stopping when I got to the Conservation Aviary. One of my favorite zoo exhibits, it’s home to several free-roaming and -flying birds that are all, very sadly, endangered. It’s possible to observe the birds fairly closely, and unlike tiny birds, these exotic beauties move relatively slowly, so they are more easily sketchable.

Great argus

Southern ground hornbill and Humboldt penguins

More penguins

After finishing my walk, I ended my visit at the Humboldt penguin exhibit, another favorite. They, too, are endangered, so my theme for the day ended up being endangered birds.

Stepping back from the exhibit, I decided to catch a few human gestures, too (below). The young boy who repeatedly squatted to see the swimming penguins was fun to try to capture! (I often practice squatting during yoga and nearly daily as part of my fitness routine, and I envied how easy he made squatting look! I guess it is when you’re 3!)

Watching the penguins

Paper notes: I knew that toothy Hahnemühle would be a bit too strong with super-soft Derwent Drawing pencils, but I tried it anyway. It wore down my pencils like sandpaper, and it was difficult to draw any fine details like eyes. Although I didn’t mind Stillman & Birn Beta’s milder tooth when I was making landscapes, I don’t care for Hahnemühle. I would have enjoyed smooth S&B Zeta much more, but I don’t like using wet media on that. I’d have to either decide which type of material to use that day and bring the appropriate sketchbook, or bring both sketchbooks everywhere, just in case. Arrggh! (More first world mixed-media problems.)

When I got to the quick human gestures at the end of my visit, I pulled out my current daily-carry Field Notes, which contains their typically smooth, all-purpose paper. That turned out to be quite lovely with a Drawing pencil, which went down as fast and smooth as a marker.